Trains, Friends and Stuff

On Friday, I went to Jangseong to get some train tickets for the weekends (the one just gone, and the next two). In May, there are two long weekends - both Saturday, Sunday and Monday. So, I got myself organised, in anticipation of stuff being busy. Koreans get bugger all holidays, and I know that they like to use them well. Koreans, in general, can be bad at organisation, but when it comes to their holiday time, they're damn organised. So, I thought I'd beat them to the chase, and get my tickets before hand. This weekend... Seoul.

More about Seoul later. After buying the tickets, I met BG. He used to live in Jangseong, but moved away for work, but he finished working, so he came back. We met up outside of Jangseong station and then went to Damyang. He insisted that there were no good restaurants in Jangseong (I don't know if that's true, because I've never eaten there before). He knew a good place that has Galbi (갈비) so we ate there, then went to Damyang Resort, a kind of public baths. It was good to go there, and we felt relaxed.


Just a couple of photos from work. Some kids hate having their photo taken, but with the way they act, they do it more for the reaction of the other students. Sometimes, some frogs like to get into the gaps in the window.


So, Saturday, I woke up, and got the local bus to Jangseong, to get the train to Seoul. This train only had 6 carriages, and I was in the 6th, so I took a few photos from the back window. The train attendant kinda looked at me strange when i was walking to the back (since there is nothing there), but when he saw my camera in hand, he got the idea.

I decided to take the Mugunghwa train (무궁화) to get to Seoul. There are three kinds of train to take in Korea: Mugunghwa (the name of Korea's national flower), Saemaeul (새마을 - directly translated "New Village") and KTX (the high speed one). KTX is okay. It gets me to Seoul in 2.5 hours (and 35,000won). But, imagine an airplane's Economy class on a train - no space, and uncomfortable. Saemaeul is a little better. There is space, but the chairs are uncomfortable. They have this massive seat divider between seats (and the shape of it is what makes it uncomfortable). It travels slower than KTX (almost as slow as Mugunghwa), gets me to Seoul in 3.5 hours, and costs 30,000won. Mugunghwa, is the oldest and slowest. It gets me to Seoul in 4 hours, and costs 20,000won. But, it is the most comfortable, with the most space.

Anyway, I got to Seoul at about 2:30pm, and made my way to City Hall station on the subway. My T-money card only had 1,000 won remaining, so I had to recharge at city hall. I was meeting 2 friends before I was having dinner with other friends, so time was tight. But one friend was late, and the other was on time, so we ended up meeting together. Then I met BG and her younger brother for dinner.

It was good to see BG. Sometimes, when her boyfriend (HM) is busy, I will just meet her, and her friends. But on Saturday, I met her younger brother, OS. He is a cool guy. I was glad that I met him. He kind of reminded me of an animation character, especially with his facial expressions and the way he emotes - almost to the point of cute. haha. (if you've seen the Japanese animation "Love Hina" think of the main character "Keitaro Urashima" ㅋㅋㅋ). We had dinner and then moved to Starbucks for coffee and 얘기. Time went really fast. We talked about a lot of things, and before we knew it, it was 9:30pm, and I had to go to Bucheon to meet HM (BG's boyfriend). So, got the subway out to Bucheon, and met him there. After he met me at the station, we went to a restaurant, where him and his friends were hanging out, then went back to HM's place to continue the party and talking there. Compared to when I met BG and OS earlier, these guys were talking damn fast! haha.

Stayed at HM's house, and woke up in time to have a shower, and get going. I wanted to get to Itaewon to buy some clothes, and then was meeting M and G there for lunch. I f**King hate Itaewon. As weird as this sounds, there are too many foreigners. At night, there are too many drunk foreigners, and too many hookers. As soon as I walked up the steps out of the subway station, I could just smell the "dirtyness". I only go there to buy clothes, since I can't really buy clothes my size anywhere else. There is one shop that I always go to, since I always get good deals there, and the ladies that work there are kind, and speak English well enough (and speak Korean well enough for me to understand - not too fast, and not using difficult words). I bought 3 t-shirts and a pair of shorts... Actually, 2 t-shirts, one was for free, since it was old.

After shopping, I met M and G, and we made our way to an Irish Pub for a meal and a chat. I ordered fish and chips, and it was damn good there, considering that I haven't had fish and chips for 6 months. There were a large group of people next to us, and I was trying to figure out what language they were speaking, but I realised that it was English, with a very strong Irish accent, after some of the guys said "fucking" a few times. haha. I had to leave at 2pm, to get my train back to Jangseong, so I had to leave M and G there.

On the train, to and from Seoul, I was translating my Japanese Traveller's phrase book, that I bought here in Korea. So, its in Korean, then with Japanese, and with the Pronunciation, using Korean letters. I find that easier than using the English/Japanese phrase book I have. Since I heard that Japanese grammar and Korean grammar was similar, I decided to learn some Japanese though Korean, and I was able to notice some patterns in the words and sentence structure. One guy that was sitting next to me on the train was kinda freaked out (in a surprising way), that a foreigner was learning Japanese though Korean, so we had a bit of a chat about that.

The train was on time back to Jangseong, but the local bus back to my town wasn't. Finally got home at 8:30am, washed my new clothes and my worn clothes, and went to bed...